31 Straight Days of Yoga

Feb 15, 2016

This past fall I found myself struggling with feeling the kind of connection I desired in my partnership with my wife. It had been something that we had both been aware of and tried listening to giving each other the space of understanding how the other felt and where we were both coming from in our frustration and desires.

Some how there continued to be this unmet connection that I hoped for. After many talks and seeking a professional to create a space for us to have an outsiders perspective I still continued to gain the presence and care that I wanted to give and receive in my marriage. Of course each of our conversations and therapy sessions were vital to the unfolding process of arriving to the desired outcome, but they weren’t the final answer.

My feelings swayed back and forth from being confused, angry, sad, and then periodically somewhat fearful that we may never reach that place as a couple.

It was late into the night one evening that I finally had a higher-mind thought, in other words a thought from God. The intuitive voice within me said, “If you want to see a change than commit yourself to something. Even if you can’t see the connection between what you are committing to and your desire, just commit and leave the rest up to the forces beyond you.”

So that evening I decided to give up alcohol and smoking pot for 90 days. Both I used periodically in a very thoughtful way, so it wasn’t as though I was doing it because I felt I had problem with drinking or smoking or that drinking or smoking are “bad”. So it began from September 29, 2015 to December 29th, 2015 that I made the successful trek of this self contract. (I even wrote a contract and had one of my best friends sign it as a witness to hold me and my intention in his daily thoughts.)

By the end of this experience I can’t quite tell you how or when the shift took place, but my desires of feeling more intimately connected with my spouse started to slowly become a reality.

By the end of the this 90 days, I felt so powerful, so alive in my body and my thinking that that same voice said, “It’s time for your next contract. This time it will be 31 straight days of a Yin and Restorative Yoga practice.” I just trusted this voice having felt so enriched and empowered from my first contract. So from January 1st, 2016 to January 31st, 2016 I completed 31 straight days of yoga.

For over eight years I have had this idea of what my ideal day/week look and feel like. I envisioned myself having

a deeply connected intimate love life.

a daily yoga and meditation practice.

a healthy eating lifestyle, and

a sense of still being connected with things I enjoy like sports, hanging with my friends, and enjoying nature

Upon the completion of 31 consecutive days of yoga, I no longer have this sense that my ideal lifestyle is in the future and I’m riding the waves of living it and then NOT, but that I am now creating that life each day with no urgency, no pressure, and no sense that my life is incomplete without something in the future. I am here, now and so incredibly grateful to have been given the message from the heavens to follow their guidance, even if I had no idea how the commitment would manifest my yearning.

So my question to you is, “What have you been challenged with that maybe a self-contract would give you the ground to grow from?”